2016.03.22 Corporate
Promoting LINE-based Contact Centers and Creating New Ways for Companies and Customers to Communicate
Tokyo, Japan – March 22, 2016 – LINE Corporation today announced that it has reached a basic agreement on March 17 for the establishment of transcosmos online communications inc., a new joint venture, with transcosmos inc.
transcosmos has been offering one-stop provision of LINE-related services, from Official Account creation and operation to LINE-based customer center creation, one-to-one marketing promotions, and CRM strategy drafting and execution. They have extensive experience utilizing LINE for business purposes, being one of the first companies to develop solutions utilizing LINE Business Connect—an operations tool enabling better business-to-client communication—and have been certified as a partner corporation for the “LINE Business Connect Partner Program,” whereby partners receive lowered development costs and fast-tracked service implementation.
LINE has more than 68 million registered users in Japan and has created various opportunities for companies to better engage with these users via services such as LINE Official Accounts, sponsored stickers and LINE Free Coins. LINE launched LINE Business Connect in February 2014. It is a service that provides a business-oriented API that includes many of the features of LINE official accounts and that offers a high degree of customizability for companies, enabling two-way communication with regular LINE users and linking with companies’ existing system data. As a result, companies are expanding their use of LINE in ways that match their needs and the unique attributes of their business.
Now, with the establishment of transcosmos online communications inc., company-to-customer communication on LINE will be even faster. Consulting and planning services for corporations and the development of other new services using LINE Business Connect will be conducted jointly by transcosmos and LINE.
As the first step, transcosmos will promote wider usage of LINE-based one-to-one customer support solutions (an area of specialty for the company), so that more companies will use a LINE-based contact center where customers can receive answers to their inquiries via LINE. By providing contact center user support over LINE instead of phone and email, companies can provide speedier and more thorough support than could be achieved over the phone or email, and also allows companies to reach and build relations with customers who have not submitted inquiries. Looking at the results of companies who have already introduced LINE-based customer support solutions, hourly inquiry response rate increases three times on average, improving efficiency and reducing personnel costs.
transcosmos online communications inc. will take advantage of LINE’s platform and user base as well as transcosmos’s sales and development capabilities as it works to provide a diverse portfolio of solutions and services to help companies build better relationships with their customers, and hopefully create a new de facto standard for company-to-customer communications.
Comment from Masataka Okuda, President & COO of transcosmos ltd.:
Since its inception, transcosmos has striven for operational excellence, which has allowed us to steer the contact center market forward as the biggest provider of contact center services. We are aiming to provide companies with more efficient contact centers via LINE Business Connect, which will enable companies requiring affordable-yet-high quality services to move their contact center operations to LINE, allowing a single operator to handle several clients at once and customers to send inquiries at any time, with no waiting due to busy phone lines. Furthermore, we will expand our service portfolio, providing direct sales marketing support with active company-to-customer communication and e-commerce, as we strive to help companies achieve both reduced costs and higher sales.
Comment from Takeshi Idezawa, CEO of LINE:
LINE has a broad user base that uses our services actively and frequently, and companies are finding new and various ways to engage such an audience. We believe the ability to handle existing phone and email-based customer support and other operations over LINE will greatly reduce the burden placed on companies and their customers alike. Through establishing this new company with transcosmos, an entity with an impressive track record for customer support solution development and provision, we will be able to accelerate the speed of business-to-customer communication on LINE. We will continue to help businesses build new points of contact by actively developing and providing new services that allow for seamless LINE-based conversations for companies and users in all manner of situations.
New Joint Venture Overview
Company Name：transcosmos online communications inc.
Representative Director：Hiroshi Kaizuka (transcosmos Corporate Senior Officer)
Directors：Koichi Iwami (transcosmos Executive Vice President)
Masaaki Muta (transcosmos Senior Executive Managing Director)
Shintaro Tabata (LINE Corporation Senior Executive Officer)
Yutaro Hayashi (LINE Corporation Corporate Business Group Manager )
Interest ratio:transcosmos (60%); LINE (40%)
Headquarters:3-25-18, Shibuya, Shibuya-ku, Japan 150-8530
Note: transcosmos is a registered trademark of transcosmos inc. LINE is a registered trademark of LINE Corporation.
All other listed company, product and service names are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective owners.
About transcosmos inc.
transcosmos launched operations in 1966. Since then it has combined superior human resources with the latest technological capabilities to enhance the competitive strength of its clients by providing them with superior services. transcosmos currently offers “Cost Reduction Services” (contact center, HR/financial/sales back office, order management/SCM, system development/management, etc.) and “Sales Expansion Services” (big data analysis, internet advertising, website construction/management, smartphone/SNS utilization, telemarketing, etc.). transcosmos continues to pursue operational excellence by providing these services through our 159 locations in 29 countries with a focus in Asia.
Furthermore, following the expansion of E-Commerce market on the global scale, transcosmos provides a comprehensive, one-stop global E-Commerce service to deliver its clients’ excellent products and services to consumers in 40 countries. transcosmos aims to be clients’ “Global BPO Partner” and provide them with high quality BPO services on a global scale. (URL： http://www.trans-cosmos.co.jp)
About LINE Corporation
LINE Corporation is based in Japan and operates the LINE messenger app and other various content and services (games, comics, music, e-payment, etc.) offered on the LINE Platform. LINE allows users to freely enjoy communication with other users around the world via audio or video calls, or in one-to-one or group messages, where users have access to a diverse array of emotive stickers. LINE also provides the curation platform NAVER Matome and the comprehensive portal site livedoor.